Course Code and Course Title
[CHES5103] Selected Themes on Chinese Literature
Time and Venue
Tue 17:30- 20:15
WMY_404
Instructor
Prof. Tam King Fai
Course Description
This course will study a body of Chinese fictional works with a focus on the depiction of crime in its many facets: the perpetrator, the victim, the investigator, the commitment of the crime, the investigation, the punishment, the social and historical settings in which the crime occurs and the material and psychological circumstances surrounding it. It will adopt a loosely chronological approach, beginning with the treatment of crime in literature in the premodern period, through various stages in the twentieth century and ending with the contemporary period. It focuses mainly on the development in the Chinese mainland but will also touch upon that in Hong Kong and the other areas of the Sinophone world.
Course Outline
Organizational meeting; Defining the Terms
The Game of Crime
Pre-20th Century Literary Depiction of Crime: Moral and Cosmic Dimensions
The Crime Genre as Entertainment and Scientific Textbook
The Criminal, the Counter-revolutionary
The Spy and the Mole
Procedural
Noir, Hard-boiled detective, Femme Fatale
Revenge
The Chinese Detective in the West I
The Chinese Detective in the West II